


Over Dead Bodies

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Ambition, Death, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, King's Own, Loss, Memory, Mourning, Promotion, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 22:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13890693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Dom is ambitious but he can't celebrate his new rank.





	Over Dead Bodies

Over Dead Bodies

Like a wart on a frog that could never be kissed into a prince, Dom sat on a mossy log far away from the flickering campfires his fellow soldiers were eating around and sipped at his goblet of wine. The wine wasn’t contraband—Dom was too ambitious to do more than quip about breaking rules—but had been given to him by Captain Flyndan in recognition of his new rank. 

Dom supposed that being promoted to corporal within a mere eight months of being in the field deserved recognition but he also thought that sour-faced Captain Flyndan looked a less less as if he had been force-fed a lemon when Dom was around, which Dom interpreted as a sign that the flinty second-in-command of the Own liked him as much as he was capable of liking a subordinate. Most of Dom’s officers liked him once they accepted the fact that he was a cheeky lad who would flirt with anyone who had two legs. He couldn’t help that. 

Charm came even more naturally to him than drinking especially drinking this sweet Tyran vintage that tasted as if it had been poisoned by a corpse. Perhaps it had. After all, he wouldn’t have been drinking it if Selwyn hadn’t died and he hadn’t been promoted to corporal by their sergeant literally over Selwyn’s dead body. 

If Selwyn were here, they would’ve competed to see who could compose the craziest toast and sung bawdy ballads about bandits and fair maidens until their voices were hoarse and their lungs sore. Selwyn wasn’t here, though, and that made Dom, who doubted he would ever sing again, feel as if he were drinking over Selwyn’s dead body. 

“Celebrating your new rank?” That was Lord Raoul, and, having heard rumors that the sight of alcohol could transform the Commander of the Own into a bear with a headache, Dom scrambled to slip his goblet behind the log so swiftly that he almost spilled on his breeches. 

“You don’t need to hide the wine from me.” Lord Raoul’s chuckle assured Dom that he wouldn’t fly into a fury from a glimpse of the libation in Dom’s goblet. 

Grateful that the wavering light from the campfires made the flames in his cheeks nearly invisible, Dom snatched up his goblet, and, when Lord Raoul plopped beside him, knees folding just below his chin, tucked a smirk behind its cool rim. 

“I’m not celebrating, sir.” Dom shook his head. He imagined he would’ve been able to rejoice in his promotion if it had come because Selwny had settled down with some lady more beautiful than a sunrise over the Emerald Ocean. That would have felt more natural than being promoted over Selwyn’s dead body, though, Dom noted inwardly with a wryness that twisted into bitterness, nothing should have been more natural to a soldier than death. “I’m drinking to Selwyn’s memory.” 

At least he was trying to, but he kept choking on the poison the world had given him in a silver chalice. He was justly punished for daring to be a second son with ambition. 

“Selwyn was a scamp.” Lord Raoul’s grin was so broad that Dom had to answer it with a faint smile of his own. “He never ate his spinach. He’d always dump it down the shirt of any unfortunate person sitting next to him.” 

“Then the person next to him would drop food on him.” Dom emitted a sound that might have been a laugh it if hadn’t been so strangled. “After that, a food fight would inevitably break out.” 

They swapped more stories of Selwyn’s antics until Dom’s laughs didn’t sound as if he had a noose wrapped around his neck. After they had shared what must have been a hundred memories of Selwyn, silence fell between them for a long moment. Then Lord Raoul swatted Dom’s knee. “You’re an ambitious lad underneath that not-a-cloud-in-the-sky, not-a-worry-in-sight attitude of yours.” 

“Yes, sir.” Dom could only duck his head because Lord Raoul’s beetle black eyes had seen through his not-a-care-in-the-world mask to the ugly reality that he cared so much it hurt. “I don’t want to climb over other people’s dead bodies to get ahead, though.” 

Dom was a rascal who followed the rules. There was a thin line that separated ambition from evil, and he was determined to remain on the right side of it. 

“You’ll climb far in life if I’m not wrong about you, young Dom, but it won’t always be over dead bodies.” Lord Raoul gave Dom’s knee a single squeeze before leaving Dom to his wine, which no longer tasted of death but of promise, memory, destiny, and ambition.


End file.
